I’ve been trying to play in some adverse weather for the past few weeks, to no avail. Every time I’ve planned to play in foul conditions, I’ve gone out and it’s been a beautiful (or at least fairly nice) day. Last night’s weather forecast looked promising…
So I went for it again. And today, mother nature did not disappoint!
But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here. Things started wet, but it was just rain (and wind and cold), so there really wasn’t much to take away from that…
Although, this approach from 133, with that wind (notice the flag), I’ll take pretty much any time. Shortly after this shot, though, things started to change. At first there was some hail mixed in with the rain. That didn’t really teach me anything, it just hurt! 😉 …but then it turned to snow…
Lesson #1 Club Up: Once the snow started falling in earnest (and collecting), the first thing I noticed was that the grass got grabby and the shots became “chunky”. This was especially true with any balls in the rough. Further, (as you might expect), the ball lost a great deal of its roll after landing. It seemed to be about a two club difference at first, but once I started clearing the snow from behind the ball before striking, it was closer to a single club. In any case, much more so than in rain, you need to club up.
Lesson #2 Be Aggressive. Be, Be, Aggressive!: This was a prominent feature and a major contributing factor to this turning out to be my best scoring round in years (a lot of years). Because of the accumulation of snow on the ball once it hit the ground, there just wasn’t much roll, including (especially?) on the greens. Which means in almost every case I could shoot hard at the pin without worrying about running past it or off the green. Once I got used to this, I was firing almost directly at the cup with my lobs, chips and pitches, and the number of 2 and 3 foot leaves I got for my efforts were amazing!
The picture above actually features a bogey put that I initially missed left. However, the accumulated snow on the ball caused the ball to topple sideways as it stopped rolling. As fortune would have it, it toppled toward the hole and saved me a stroke!
Lesson #3 Golf Shoes Collect Snow as Well as They Collect Grass: As pictured below, the snow really collected fast under my shoes. At first it collected on the soft spikes, making me feel as though I had large cleats on my feat. I felt obligated to knock all of the snow off of them before stepping on the greens as I was afraid to leave a very odd set of “ball marks” tracking across the green if I didn’t. As more collected and the “snow pack” became even, things got a bit slippery; so, again, maintenance was needed pretty constantly. On a positive note, my shoes held up great, keeping my feet dry and warm(ish).
Lesson #4 Irons: This didn’t seem logical to me, but my irons did much better off the tee than my woods did. I thought the best approach would be to use my woods to get the ball in the air because of the lack of roll. However – between the snow and wind – the ball just seemed to hold up after a bit and come straight down (maybe it needed de-icing fluid???). By contrast, my iron shots seemed to stay “under the wind” and have decent carry, and the roll wasn’t that bad… probably from coming in a bit hotter.
Lesson #5 Equipment: Maybe this lesson I “learned” before, but it was implemented today and made a huge difference. I went through three sets of gloves today. The first set were my “weather” gloves. They were troopers and got me through 12 holes before I had to swap them out. They had just taken on a little too much water and were starting to freeze. My other gloves were just “regular” golf gloves, so they lasted a couple of holes each… just enough to get me home.
I bought some water resistant (based on my experience I’m inclined to call them water-proof, but the maker doesn’t, so I won’t) golf pants for the trip. They were, in a word, amazing. They completely shed all of the rain, hail and snow and left me feeling completely dry below the waist throughout the entire round. Ironically, the wettest part of the pants was inside the waterproof pockets. With snow laden balls being shoved in there between holes, water actually started collecting inside the pockets.
My water resistant pullover was not as admirable in the dispatch of its duties, however I always have a rain coat in my bag, and it worked perfectly as an outer shell.
Properly equipped, the rather harsh conditions really didn’t affect me all that much (other than the sting of the brief hail insurgence). Given that there was moisture (in one form or another) falling from the sky the entire round, the wind was constantly blowing, and the temperature never cleared 40, I’d call that a win.
this could be my favorite commentary